Grey water disposal with water-absorbant crystals

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:55 pm

http://www.basepump.com/Waterbags.htm
http://www.digahole.com/index.htm
http://www.watercrystals.com/
http://www.watersorb.com/prices.htm
http://www.digahole.com/index.htm
http://www.watercrystals.com/

These folks sell the crystals that are used in diapers. I've ordered a couple of pounds from watersorb.com, as they were the cheapest. The guy I talked to said about a pound of crystals would absorb about 5 gallons of water, turning it into a slurry that was as thick as I wanted (by varying the amount of crystals). The resultant slurry would be flushable (pour it down the toilet) or disposable in sanitary landfills.

He says the crystals won't absorb oil and grease and solids (assumed to be in dishwater), but that won't affect the slurry itself -- it will be interspersed among the crystals instead of being absorbed.

He says the five gallons of water will still have the volume of 5 gallons after absorption (plus the volume of the crystals), but that it will be either non-spillable or very jelly-like, as I wish when adding crystals. Pour waste water into a bucket, stir in crystals to the desired consistency, and leave in the shade (sunlight degrades the polymers).

Cooky · Post by **Cooky** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 6:19 pm

Seems like a decent idea for hauling out smallish amounts of grey water for disposal off playa. One thought though, even if it can normally be disposed in sanitary systems (toilets) that does not apply to the port-o-potties on playa.

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:38 pm

that does not apply to the port-o-potties on playa

Good point, and I should have said that myself.

Louise and I have smallish quantities of grey water -- less than a gallon a day.

jbelson · Post by **jbelson** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:17 pm

It's not really disposal though is it if it's just changing it from grey water to the slurry with the same volume that the water had before?

Lassen Forge · Post by **Lassen Forge** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:59 pm

That's all it does - turns the water into a jell-type substance. It does not reduce the volume of the water, nor (do I think) it makes the water more evaporatable... Just keeps it from sloshing out of a bucket easier.

phil · Post by **phil** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:41 pm

It's not really disposal though is it if it's just changing it from grey water to the slurry with the same volume that the water had before?

Correct. Louise and I have traveled the playa looking for good ways to get rid of grey water, and they're aren't any. I've seen guys with layers of plates and pans with the water being pumped to the top to evaporate as it spills from one layer to another, child wading pools full of waste water, pizza pans with leftover cooking water -- as far as we can tell, nothing works to get rid of the water and leave the greyness. We generate more liquid than can be evaporated. Hence, gel it and take it back.

Filling a bucket with water and stirring in the crystals means you'll have an easily transportable bucket o' goo to take back with no sloshing, no worry about spillage as you truck back home. It can then be poured down your toilet or left at a sanitary station in Reno, or put out with your regular garbage at home. It's not for disposal on the playa at BM.

If you had 5 gallons of waste water, you'll have 5 gallons of jelly (plus the volume of the crystals - a cup or less, according to the guy I talked to). Same weight, same volume. No easy solutions, to coin a phrase, to getting rid of the water on the playa.

supersurly · Post by **supersurly** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:05 pm

phil wrote: Louise and I have smallish quantities of grey water -- less than a gallon a day.

You've got to be joking.

I can think of about 10 different ways to dispose of a gallon of grey water a day with no work or money involved. Just putting a towel in a bucket and leaving the top half suspended in the air is the first that comes to mind.

Why don't you just put the grey water back in the container it came from?

Janka · Post by **Janka** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:09 pm

What puzzles me about these "wet a cloth and let it dry" evaporation methods is this. As I understand it, the reasoning about not pouring your grey water in the playa is not the water, but all the dirt and chemicals in the water. Now, if you drop a piece of cloth in the water, and then let it dry in the wind and sun, won't the wind just the same spread all the dirt and chemicals on the playa?

(Pack it in, pack it out, is what sounds most reasonable to me. Since you got that water to the playa in the first place, you just have to have the containers to pack the same amount out, right?)

EvilDustBooger · Post by **EvilDustBooger** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:32 pm

Janka wrote:What puzzles me about these "wet a cloth and let it dry" evaporation methods is this. As I understand it, the reasoning about not pouring your grey water in the playa is not the water, but all the dirt and chemicals in the water. Now, if you drop a piece of cloth in the water, and then let it dry in the wind and sun, won't the wind just the same spread all the dirt and chemicals on the playa?

(Pack it in, pack it out, is what sounds most reasonable to me. Since you got that water to the playa in the first place, you just have to have the containers to pack the same amount out, right?)

I`m thinking that only -water- is "evaporating" with the towel method, leaving the food particles and detergent residue in the container and on the fabric.
I don`t think there is much actual toxicity in most people`s grey-water,.The Main Problem Is...it`s just nasty, and if you dump it in the johns it adds to the overflow problems, or....if you just dump it on the playa, it makes a nasty little slime-hole that people step in / sink tires in etc...If everyone just dumped thier grey water "out back" it would be a real mess just getting around all of the various "pig wallows".....

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 4:33 pm

Why don't you just put the grey water back in the container it came from?

It comes out of our drinking water, hon.

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 4:46 pm

I`m thinking that only -water- is "evaporating" with the towel method, leaving the food particles and detergent residue in the container and on the fabric.

That's my experience. The towel gets super stiff and harsh from the crud left on it.

Frankly, filtering my gray water and then throwing it up in the air so that it spreads out all over the road doesn't seem that outrageous. No puddles and such, since it's only a couple of cups. The problem isn't really the gray water, it's the 30,000 people dumping their gray water. Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right? There's not enough urine in one place to make a problem.

So I figure we should all get together Saturday at 5:00 pm and urinate right in front of the Man! 30,000 of us. Then wait for the fire dancers. :->

Elemental666 · Post by **Elemental666** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:31 pm

phil wrote:Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right? There's not enough urine in one place to make a problem.

So I figure we should all get together Saturday at 5:00 pm and urinate right in front of the Man! 30,000 of us. Then wait for the fire dancers. :->

This is a joke right? I've seen more than one thread were people complain about having stepped in your piddle puddle... Not sure what you think the fire dancers are gonna do about it, except get it all over them since they would then have to dance it... which is not cool. Not cool at all. Maybe all the fire dancers should get together while your all peeing at the man and pee all over your camp. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Janka · Post by **Janka** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:10 pm

Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right?

I thought you weren't supposed to, anyhow.

Thanks for the cloth evaporation info. Based on that, I think I need to do some experiments this year, for a longer-term project. I suppose the trick is that the cloth must be thick enough so that when it crusts it hangs stiff, instead of flapping in the wind and spreading all the bad stuff around.

phil · Post by **phil** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:49 pm

Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right?
I thought you weren't supposed to, anyhow.

My handy dandy Survival Guide that I got last week mentions on two different pages that we may not defecate on the playa. Not a peep about pee, though. If you know of something on the topic, I'd be happy to read and observe.

In 1999, a police woman ticketed a man for indecent exposure when he voided his bladder on the playa -- since that is not against the law, she had to trump up a charge. (She later said she did it because there were portapotties available, so he didn't _need_ to take a leak on the playa.) Charging a person with going naked at Burning Man made the cop the butt of many jokes in the official paper and in the JRS after the burn, but no one complained that he had urinated on the playa.

Janka · Post by **Janka** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:20 am

Phil, "I thought" and "anyhow" were there exactly because I don't remember where the reference was. I seem to remember reading it from somewhere last year. ;) I might well remember wrong.

EvilDustBooger · Post by **EvilDustBooger** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:35 am

phil wrote: Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right? There's not enough urine in one place to make a problem.

OK.....you ARE kidding about that.....right?

If not.....
...allright goddammit I am complaining about it.
Sure , you see people pissing all over the Playa.
They relieve themselves and go away. You can hardly blame someone who is stuck out on the open desert, far away from camp or the facilities....or maybe the john`s are overflowing like a few were last year.....
...BUT if you just piss where everyone is walking around, people ARE going to step in your little mushy piddle pool, and have the honor of having your urine drenched playa-paste squishing around between thier toes.
It happened to me, and I didn`t like it one bit. It really violates my personal space to have to have other peoples waste products smeared on me, my clothes, my shoes....whatever.

So maybe in an emergency ....piss up a storm...but in general.......
........................PLEASE,. . . Show Some Class - Keep it Contained.

Post by **AntiM** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:35 am

Such as the woman whose friends closed around her while she squatted ... this was on burn night as the crowd was gathering. She didn't even walk out of the circle, she went right in the path of heavy foot traffic!

I went over and discretely tapped her on the shoulder, said, "At least kick some dust over it so people won't walk right in the wet." She did and I hope I embarrassed her suitably so she won't do it again.

phil · Post by **phil** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 9:50 am

I might well remember wrong.

You and me both! I'm not challenging you, I'm just saying if you know of a place that says I'm wrong, I'll be happy to read up on it and observe the restriction. Sorry I wasn't clear that I'm looking for information, not a fight.

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:08 am

I was playing around with some PVC electrical conduit the other day, making some hoops to support a shade, and had a lightbulb....Using the gray conduit with a built-in coupler on one end, you can connect the ends to make a hoop. Connecting TWO makes a BIGGER hoop. Lay plastic over the hoop, on the ground, and use spring clips to anchor the plastic. Maybe add a tentstake or three. (And flag/cover 'em!) A quick-and-easy evap pond, without lumber. (The conduit will easily bend to fit into your vehicle.)
Experimentation has shown that once this stuff has been bent into a curve for a while it develops somewhat of a memory....Keeping it relatively straight until building your pond may be a practical step.
The shallowness of the resulting pond acts as an automatic limiter to the amount of water that you pour into it, resulting in an increased likelihood of successful evaporation.

phil · Post by **phil** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:19 pm

The shallowness of the resulting pond acts as an automatic limiter to the amount of water that you pour into it, resulting in an increased likelihood of successful evaporation.

If someone is using an evap pond, shallowness is indeed the key. The problem then comes up, how much surface area can you have in your campsite. BMOrg touts some group as evaporating over a hundred gallons a day, but they're using two ponds of 10 feet by 40 feet! That's 800 square feet of surface area. I'm thinking I'll stick with the absorbant crystals and a bucket, bringing it back to dispose of at the Reno Transfer Station. We've got barely enough room to walk between campers at our theme camp.

All results will vary. The views outside my window are not necessarily my own. All solutions are subject to precipitation; avoid supersaturation. All electrons used in generating this post were recycled from 100% post-consumer waste.

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:05 am

Certainly if EVERYONE had an evap pond, the city'd be a navigational nightmare....I'm trying what I can in our hot-but-humid Michigan climate to develop a combo evap/shade system using thriftstore towels. I won't be able to test it until 37 days from now....bringing packitout containers for all GW in the eventuality of System Failure.

supersurly · Post by **supersurly** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:01 pm

phil wrote:
Why don't you just put the grey water back in the container it came from?
It comes out of our drinking water, hon.

You must be pretty dense if you don't understand the concept of putting your waste water back in your EMPTY containers, hon.

Grey water disposal with water-absorbant crystals

Grey water disposal with water-absorbant crystals

Easily transported bucket o' goo